


Fall Back Together

by DoctorSyntax



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Aftercare, Bondage, Breathplay, Episode: s03e14 Grotesque, Established Relationship, F/M, Safeword Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-10 08:29:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6947776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorSyntax/pseuds/DoctorSyntax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-<em>Grotesque</em>, our heroes engage in some bondage with the intention of relaxing and reconnecting. When it doesn't go to plan, they must navigate their way back to each other before the chasm deepens.</p><p>This is maybe 5% porn, 5% dungeon emergency, 40% ode to meditative bondage, and 50% gross domestic aftercare.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Back Together

Something soul-deep and intrinsic relaxes deep within Mulder as Scully pulls the end of the rope securing his wrist through her bedpost and knots it off. He is naked, spread-eagle, each limb tied down separately. Completely bare to Scully and her mercy. He should be terrified, or at least mildly concerned, but he knows Scully would never abuse this vulnerability. He has placed his life in her hands many times before, and she has never let him down.

"Harness now," she murmurs, squeezing his other hand. He squeezes back, automatically, a reflex after so many months of check-ins like that. "How are we doing?"

"Green," he whispers, voice scratchy with disuse and arousal.

There is nobody else in the world but the two of them. Her bedroom reminds him of the bank vault from _The Twilight Zone_ : outside the world could have ended and it wouldn't matter to him. It'd be perfect, actually. Time enough at last. From the bed beside him, Scully selects a length of hemp, running it through her fingers until she finds the colored thread marking the midpoint. "Head up," she instructs, voice soft. Mulder obeys, letting her slip the bight around the back of his neck. "A little higher. Shoulders off the bed if you can."

He can't. There's less slack than he was expecting and he's not sure why, but he trusts her to know the reason. It is, however, impossible to do as she asks. He shakes his head. "Can't."

"That's okay," she soothes, because she knows him well enough to anticipate the guilt he is feeling. "I have a better idea anyway." She slides one hand under his body, snagging the rope with her index finger. She winks as she pulls the rope down to rest in the small of his back. All he feels is the slow drag of one fingernail between his shoulderblades. His eyes are rolled back in his head, but he knows what her smirk looks like.

"I want you to roll your shoulders back and hold that in place. Can you do that for me?"

He can do that.

Scully swings one leg over his torso, straddling him but not resting her weight on his body. He longs to arch up but she's too far away from his dick for it to be any use, and he's pretty sure the lack of slack in his limb restraints are to stop him from doing that anyway.

She spends the next few minutes making nice, evenly-spaced overhand knots in the rope. This is something she could have done ahead of time but he likes it better when she doesn't. It's a quiet few moments where he can listen to her measured breathing and adjust his to match. The room is silent, so the only other sound he can hear is the slide of rope-on-rope as she pulls the ends through each successive knot. By the time she's finished, he's in a state of relaxation so deep he doesn't think he ever wants to wake up.

"Lift your hips a little," she says, bundle of rope in her hand. He tries to obey and can't, so he shakes his head again. She kisses the scrape next to his eye, which surprises him a little. She's always tender with him, but this is almost loving.

"That's okay. I'm going to wiggle this in as best I can then, okay? Tell me if I need to stop."

It takes some maneuvering, but she manages to get the rope looped through the part under his shoulders, and pulls apart the two lines to come out on either side of his body, just below the armpits. Here she stops, and reaches up to squeeze each of his hands in turn. He squeezes back. She doesn't verbalize her question, trusting him to communicate any issues. It's strange to think that here is where they are best at communication, but that doesn't make it any less true.

"You can relax your shoulders now," she tells him, gently. He hadn't even realized he was still holding them locked in place, but they scream with relief when he allows them to roll back onto the bed.

Scully spends the better part of fifteen minutes completing the diamond patterns on the front of the harness, manhandling and maneuvering his body as she sees fit. Her small arms keep wrapping around him, shifting him in order to pass rope under his body. Her breasts brush against his chest and he arches his back, seeking more, while she ignores the demands of his body. As if she can't feel his hard-on every time she shifts.

But it doesn't matter. It's secondary to this. To her hands, so soft and sure, leaving fingerprints across his skin. To the faint scent of hay caused by the friction of rope sliding against rope. To the way the ropes scratch at his skin lightly when she tugs and ties. Somewhere along the way he closes his eyes to sink deeper into the sensations; the further along she gets into the web, the more he feels. As she works her way down his body the rope tightens in on itself, wrapping him snugly. With every cinch and pull on the rope the harness vibrates against his naked skin, until he's beginning to feel scraped raw in the best possible way.

She goes slowly—in part, he knows, because she is a perfectionist, but also because she knows he likes it. When she reaches the apex of his legs she handles his equipment gently, if impersonally, moving them as necessary to continue with her work.

He feels the sharp tug of a knot coming together, and knows that she is (finally, finally) done. His pulse jumps in anticipation until he hears the click and whir of a camera—he knows it's her second camera, the one perhaps only six people in the world know about. She always leaves his face out, but documenting her work is just about the only dangerous aspect of their lifestyle that she engages in, and secretly he loves knowing that she's so proud of her work that she'll indulge this small risk.

 _If you want to know the artist, look at the art._ It comes unbidden to his mind and he banishes it just as quickly. That's not for here. No room for cases in their little bubble, no matter how recent, no matter how fresh the wounds. Instead he closes his eyes once more and focuses on the stillness of the room. Thinks of his body, mindful of the space that it occupies, while he waits.

She doesn't keep him waiting for long.

Almost immediately she climbs atop him again and leans forward, and her breasts brush against him for what's surely the thousandth time today. Her lips are so close to his ear, he can hear her wet them. Her voice is husky. "I have something special in mind today," she tells him, and his eyes pop open in expectation of her next words. "I'm going to tie you down so tight to this bed, you'll barely be able to move." The tip of her tongue touches his earlobe, just slightly, and then she moves her head to make eye contact. "How does that sound?"

He can feel the lust flashing in his eyes, sees it mirrored in hers. He doesn't know what her plan is but he trusts it to be a good one. His tongue is thick but he manages to whisper, "Good."

She grins. "Good. Before we start, show me the non-verbal safeword."

He obeys, and she cups the side of his face in one small hand, communicating her approval with a stroke of her thumb before turning back to her ropes.

She works more quickly through this part, looping two separate lengths of ropes onto each side of the harness with a lark's head knot. Although he can't see where she secures the ends of each line, it's a safe bet to assume the bed frame. As she ties off the last line, he cautiously tests the slack and finds, to his everlasting pleasure, that there's none to work with.

For the first time since the Mostow case began he feels secure, safe, with Scully's care for him made tangible. It's wrapped around him in the form of hemp rope, grounding him. Maybe holding him together. Maybe both. Scully is kneeling beside him, between her two anchoring lines on his right side, and he has no idea what's coming next. Anticipation ratchets up a notch or two, warring incongruously with the soul-deep relaxation he feels. The dichotomy of the two feelings is what he lives for, the notion of risk-free danger so appealing to him after a lifetime of real danger.

Using one finger, she lightly traces random parts of the harness, following no pattern. For Mulder, whose skin is already highly sensitized, even the lightest touch is just the right side of too-intense. Every so often she'll scrape with the tip of her fingernail, knowing full well what effect it has on him.

By the time she curls her hand around his dick, he's about to lose his mind. He has no doubt that Scully, with her careful eye and analytical doctor's mind, has observed his symptoms—and yet, her sadistic streak comes to the forefront of the proceedings.

Her hand is so loose it isn't even touching him in some parts. And she is absolutely doing it on purpose. For a moment he is torn between the need for release and the need to keep her close for as long as possible. She makes the decision for him, gliding her hand along the length of his dick at a maddeningly slow pace, until he can't help trying to arch up into it. It is a source of both pleasure and frustration to find that she'd done her job impeccably—the ropes allow no leeway, keeping his hips pinned to the bed. No matter what he does, how he moves, he can't find a way to get quite enough. 

She shifts slightly, moving the knee closest to him in between his legs. He assumes it's for leverage and he's half right, he realizes with a thrill, as her free hand comes up to wrap around his throat. He should have seen this coming; she'd asked for the non-verbal safeword, after all, and it's on the list of unrestricted activities. But, somehow, he hadn't. 

He can feel the blood throbbing through the veins beneath her fingers as his vision starts to fray around the edges. Every time he swallows, his throat tightens. Every intake of breath seems only to increase the pressure in his lungs—he can breathe in, but not out—while the white snow he's seeing encroaches further. As it threatens to obscure his entire field of vision Scully leans a little closer, allowing him to see her. She looks bored, but he knows her face. She's attentively monitoring his breathing, listening for the frequency and quality of inhales. She won't let anything happen to him.

_....but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation..._

The thought arises from nowhere and swirls around his head until it settles, like a noose, around his neck.

Like a noose.

Oh, god, her hand is a noose around his neck. He's going to die.

Panic blinds him for only a few seconds, but it feels like hours as he fights it back, trying to remember what it is that he needs to do to live. He's tied to the bed, can't move an inch, can't focus, but he _knows_ there's a way to fix this if only he can get through to Scully. Something, somehow....

Yes. Mulder opens and closes his right hand in a clear "stop" gesture three times. He's not even finished before Scully's releasing her hand from his neck, shifting further up and grabbing the EMT shears beside them on the bed. "Talk to me, Mulder."

The marlinspike is _right there_ , he thinks, gasping in ragged breaths. Why does she have the scissors in hand? Why doesn't she know the danger is past?

For that matter, why doesn't his racing heart?

Her eyes are alert, not quite frantic, as she cuts the ropes holding his wrists. He forms words with his mouth but sounds don't come out. After a bit of effort, he manages to curl his fingers into a weak thumbs-up.

"Okay?" she asks, running her hands over him, listens to him breathe. When her ear comes close to his mouth he mumbles _sorry, sorry, sorry_ —

"Nothing to be sorry for," she says, but that's not true, there is. Something about the rope, he thinks, straining to recall. It's... special. Expensive? Or not. He remembers her explaining how she treats it, hours and hours of boiling water and careful attention.

He clears his throat and tries to marshal his thoughts. "Rope..." he says vaguely. "You cut..." Normally he likes getting caught in this haze, but today's different.

"Jesus, Mulder," she snaps, more harshly than he'd have expected from her. "I could give a damn about the rope."

By now she's slicing through a few key points in the rope covering his torso, pulling knots undone. The whole harness loosens from his body. He feels it fall away like threads unraveling, and it's only then he finally starts to feel like he can breathe.

"Talk to me," she murmurs, and he grabs at her arms to pull her close, which isn't what she asked for but the best he can manage right now. With a worrying lack of resistance, Scully lies down beside him and uses his chest as a pillow, hand splayed over his heart. He knows she's listening to it beat, reassuring herself. He also knows she's waiting for an answer, an explanation for something he has no idea how to articulate.

He swallows thickly. "Just—a little intense. Got too far into my own head."

She scratches her nails lightly against his torso. "Come on, let's get in the tub. I'll draw us a bath." His favorite. She's trying to distract him, he thinks. But from what? He stares at the ceiling, focusing on his inhale and exhale, trying to focus.

Her arm, on his chest. Shaking a little.

So that's it.

He can't think his usual three steps ahead right now, but he can manage one. First step: "I'm going to go get us some water while the bath runs, okay?"

She just nods. It takes him a minute to get himself together enough to hoist his body on the bed, but once he's standing, he feels a little more human. After detangling a few sections of rope hanging limply off him, he heads into the kitchen. As quickly as he can manage he fills two glasses with water and then drains one of them. The second, he brings into the bathroom for Scully.

She's fully undressed now, facing the tub as it fills. He can't see her face but he can tell by her posture that she's staring off into space, getting lost in her head, which is the last thing he intends to allow. She startles a little when he drapes his body around her, intentionally 'stumbling' so that she must shuffle a few steps forward to avoid them both toppling to the ground. Her bare feet come to rest on the plush mat beside her tub, which is exactly what he'd been aiming for. He'd wrap her in down blankets and lay her on a bed of pillows if he thought he could get away with it, but he knows better to imagine any response other than complete shutdown.

He has to press the glass of water into her hand before she'll accept it, and even then, she just holds it numbly. "Your hands are freezing," she starts. "Any tingling or numbness?"

"No." He knows she's trying to distract him from the way her hand still shakes, and he's just cognizant enough that he won't let her. "Drink the water, Scully. I mean it."

The bath she's run is clear, so he rummages through the cabinet while she takes small sips from her cup. He finds a mostly-full bag of lavender Epsom salts and dumps the entire thing under the running tap.

"Mulder!" she scolds, with a hint of smile on her lips. Good. He moves over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, nuzzling her neck. Her water glass is still half-full. "That was enough for five baths."

"Oops." It's deadpan, but he can't quite hide his smirk. "Guess we're going to have to do five baths' worth of relaxing." He tips the glass toward her mouth again, and she glares, but she does finish the water.

"But Mulder, none of their so-called beneficial properties have been substantiated. There's no proof they repair muscles, rejuvenate skin, promote relaxation, or anything else you read on that bag. All they do is smell nice."

Briefly he pauses to consider the glorious mess that is his partner, the doctor who will buy homeopathic nonsense for nothing more than the fragrance. The Catholic woman who will let him want her, need her, fuck her—but never love her. The ultra-professional Ice Queen who will take care of her partner in the most intimate, unconventional ways, but forever tries to hide her own needs. "Sure, but I want to smell extra-nice at work tomorrow. You're so selfish, Scully."

She rolls her eyes, testing the water with a gentle dip of her toe. She must like what she feels because she sets her empty cup on the floor and climbs right in.

"Shut up and get over here," she says, twisting the tap off.

"You know I get all tingly when you boss me around like that." He steps in, settling himself so his arms are wrapped around her. Just being in the water clears his head more, like some kind of Pavlovian reaction. His body, understanding what this bath is for because they've done it so many times before. "But I guess a cuddle is the least I could do for scaring you earlier."

"I feel like this was so tame compared to some of the other activities we've engaged in." She takes one of his hands, gently rubbing the wrist to ensure his circulation goes back to normal.

He grunts. "You're right about that. Remember the time in Mississippi?"

" _Do I_ ," she confirms, switching wrists. "And the time you wanted to re-enact that case where Skinner—"

"Please don't remind me how twisted that got," he interrupts, pretending to be embarrassed in a bid to make her laugh. But it has the opposite effect—she sobers instantly, letting his hand fall back into the water. She moves away from him, down toward his ankles. He's sure it's only partially because she wants to restore their circulation.

She's so damn good at shutting herself off from him.

"But that's just it," she starts, after a moment of total silence. "Nothing we did was new. I thought that tonight was going to be pretty low-key. So it startled me that you got to a point where you had to safeword out, and I didn't even notice anything was wrong."

"Sorry," he says.

"Stop that. I'm not mad. I just..." She sounds so lost, even though she couldn't have known what was going on in his head. And maybe that's it, he realizes. He knows what happened, but she still has no idea where it all went wrong. It must have blindsided her. "Mulder, what did I miss?"

The plaintive tone of her voice is like a knife to his heart. He's upset her. Scared her. This last case, he put so much distance between them to protect her, but all it's done is make her worry more, until now she feels she can't trust her own instincts about him. There's a part of him that wants to get up and leave, never darken her doorstep again—but looking at the freckled slope of her shoulders and the way she's curled into herself, he knows he can't.

He pulls her back into his body even though she's not finished. He wants her to feel him against her, alive and well, so she can stop concocting doomsday scenarios in her head. "You didn't miss anything," he says firmly, because she needs to understand that it wasn't her fault. "It was all in my head... I was thinking about something Clyde Bruckman said."

She twists around to stare at him in total disbelief. "The old man we met a few months ago? What on Earth did he say to you to spook you like that?"

"Remember, in the car, he said I was going to die as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation... Something made me think of that and then... I dunno, Scully. I just couldn't get it out of my head." It sounds ridiculous to say out loud. But he has no idea how to communicate the terror he'd felt. The absolute certainty that he was about to die if he couldn't get through to her. He's not sure he wants to make her understand something like that.

She considers this information for a moment, then pats his face. "Well, maybe he just saved your life."

Mulder groans. She's teasing, but he'd thought the same thing in all seriousness. "Yeah, but at the expense of my favorite thing?"

"I thought I was your favorite thing..." she says, pouting.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks, trying to tamp down his grin. She _is_ his favorite thing. Gotta play it cool, though, because she talks a good game but he knows the real strength of his feelings for her would scare her away. "Second favorite, maybe."

She shoves him lightly. The water sloshes. The scent of lavender assaults him, but it's his own fault and anyway he kind of likes it. Not that he'd ever say that out loud.

"How was it supposed to end?"

For a moment Scully doesn't speak, busy soaping up his torso, but she doesn't move out of his embrace so he lets her buy the time; they've got all night. "You know, Mulder, if I remember correctly he said _autoerotic_ asphyxiation."

"That is what I remember him saying as well," he confirms.

"Well, the prefix _auto-_ comes from the Greek _autós_ , meaning 'self'. So as long as you don't do this alone..." Finally, she looks up.

"Then I should be immortal, like you," he finishes. He can see her delight that he so easily picked up what she was implying. She doesn't believe Bruckman's assertion that she'll never die, but she enjoys joking about it from time to time and he is always happy to let her, unwilling to consider a world without her in it.

"So I was thinking," she continues, "after I order some new rope—"

"I'm sorry about that, Scully," he interrupts. So damnably sorry. It was dumb of him to freak out like that when he was never in any real danger at all. When he opens his mouth to say so, Scully places a finger on his lips to shush him.

"I'm not."

"But—" he starts, and she presses her finger harder.

"You're more important than some rope, Mulder. Rope can be replaced. You can't." She gives him a look, one that clearly says, _Are we done now?_ and pulls her finger away.

"But it's so expensive," he blurts out, before she can stop him again.

Realization lights her face and she murmurs, "Ah, so that's what this is about." He watches her face go through a series of expressions, and he can see the cogs turning in her mind. Trying to figure out how to explain... whatever it is that she's trying to explain. After a long moment, she touches his cheek with her fingertips. "Mulder, this is my hobby. Do you think that was my first set of rope?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "No. Not by a long shot. It gets worn out and unsafe and needs to be replaced. I've had that particular set for a very long time, and I was going to replace it within the next two months. I already have the money set aside."

"At least let me give you half."

"No." She sounds very adamant. Naked and in the tub, wrapped in his arms, Scully still manages to command her larger-than-life presence. "Before you say it, Mulder, I _know_ you feel responsible. But you're not, and I need for you to understand that. You don't need to make amends."

He's going to get emotional whiplash. Isn't that what he was forcing her to realize not ten minutes ago? "And you aren't either, so we should split the cost. We're a team, Scully."

She shakes her head. "I'm not taking your money. We mutually agreed that I would be making the decisions about what happened tonight. Something happened that was out of our control. I made the decision about how to react to it and I knew its consequences. I'm not going to let you take on those consequences."

Such a thorough, well-reasoned argument. He hates when she does this. "You sound like you've thought about this a lot."

She blows out a long breath, almost a sigh of relief. "Of course."

But that doesn't jive with the fear he can tell she's still feeling. Unless... "Was this the first time someone you were with used their safeword?"

"No," she says quickly, but it doesn't sounds true. He tips her chin up, looks her straight in the eyes until she relents and glances away. "Well, sort of. This was certainly the direst instance. This was... the only time I thought it was something life-threatening." Any other person would say _You scared me, Mulder_ but he knows better to think he will hear it from her lips.

"I was scared," he says, instead. His honesty seems to shock her, and he sees hints of pain in her beautiful eyes, which is why it's so important to say this. "But I was never scared because of you. I trusted you to take care of me, even when I thought I was going to die." _I love you_ , he thinks. The words spring unbidden to his mind in the same way so many other phrases have tonight, and he drives them away just like all the others. "I've never trusted anyone like that," he says, instead.

Like every other time he has dropped an emotional bomb on her, she grows silent, contemplative, and all he can do is wait to see how she will manage to ease him down while simultaneously drawing him further in. It's a special gift she has. Or maybe he's just a sucker. It must be the latter since he keeps coming back for more, forever trying to push the limits of their partnership-with-benefits. Never content to accept the fact that she could never truly love someone as damaged as him.

"I want to try this particular scenario again one day," Scully tells him, after a pause. He's not surprised that she won't directly address his admission. "Maybe not right away, but... someday. Do you think you would want that?"

He searches her expression for even a hint that she's putting on a brave face. But her breathing is steady. She isn't shaking. She seems to have overcome the shock of this evening. More than that, he feels confident that this was a one-time problem, a perfect storm of circumstance that, although disastrous, could never form again. "More than anything," he says, pulling her closer, and means it.

She rests her head on his shoulder and doesn't say anything more. Mulder doesn't mind. It is enough just to be there with her, so they stay like that, nestled together, until the water grows cold around them.


End file.
